


close enough to whisper: hold on to me

by goldfyshie927



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Awkward Flirting, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gideon is an idiot who won't admit she's in love with Harrow, Late Night Conversations, Romantic Fluff, as always, like come on girl, we get it, you're obsessed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:26:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29366217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldfyshie927/pseuds/goldfyshie927
Summary: Canaan house seemed like a million years ago but each memory remained crystal clear, locked in place in frozen perfect recollection. Both a blessing and a curse. She scrolled through them, flipped through the pages like they were one of her magazines. This one was too long. That one was too boring. This one was too nasty. That one hurts more than she can fathom.There: that one was a good one. She sunk into it, going under.gideon toes some sort of line,or, what if we'd heard more of the post-pool conversationspost pool scene, post GtN, and a little bit canon-divergent
Relationships: Gideon Nav & Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Griddlehark - Relationship
Comments: 3
Kudos: 61





	close enough to whisper: hold on to me

Gideon had only thought of being inside of Harrow once, in a mindless moment, at least a hundred years ago, while she’d been alone in her cell with a stack of skin mags next to her. _Naughty Nuns of the Ninth_ wasn’t her usual go-to - kind of boring and very cliche, let’s be honest - but she’d been through the rest of the stack a handful of times and had been itching for something new. After a casual perusal, she’d discovered that it wasn’t the worst thing she’d read and could be put to good use. Unfortunately, Harrowhark’s pinched, angry little face had slid inside the grey matter of Gideon’s brain and before she had even processed it, she was imagining Harrow’s hands and Harrow’s mouth and Harrow’s wet—well needless to say, it was a one time slip up and she promised herself it would never happen again. She wasn’t wholly convinced that Harrow didn’t know, somehow, and was just waiting for the right time to dole out some twisted version of justice. 

And anyway, all of that was neither here nor there because now Gideon _was_ inside of Harrow and it definitely wasn’t what she’d had in mind when she’d pictured it back in her cramped little cell. It _wasn’t_ all fun and games like _Naughty Nuns of the Ninth_ had promised. In fact it wasn’t fun and games at all. Definitely more along the lines of eternal pain and misery. Not that she hurt, per se. But being inside Harrow felt like being trapped in the deepest well ever to have been dug in the coldest, darkest planet ever to have existed. Here, Gideon was an amalgam of her thoughts and Harrow’s (mostly Harrow’s, except when Harrow was asleep or had passed out, the latter of which happened a frankly worrying amount) and she couldn’t ever quite see clearly enough to even attempt to enjoy her time here. 

Being eaten really was the biggest mindfuck. 

She knew important things were happening, things she needed to be aware of, things she should and would need to help Harrow with (that was her job and she was good at it). But it felt like a tightly woven mesh screen had been placed just inside the top of the well and she couldn’t ever quite see through enough to get a grasp for what was truly going on out there. Her ears felt waterlogged (her metaphorical ears, of course, because her real ears were somewhere back at Canaan house she assumed, hopefully still attached) and no matter how many times she tried to claw her way out of the well, she found herself tumbling right back inside. 

Didn’t Harrow need her or what? 

So here Gideon sat, in the damp dark of night while Harrow slept restlessly. And she tried to reconstruct the events of the day as best she could remember them: wake up, tear the sword unceremoniously from the bone sheath and construct a new one, nick the blade all to hell, barf a little, stumble through empty halls, get yelled at by one or two asshole Lyctors, train with the weakest noodle arms known in the Universe, throw up some more, take a fully clothed bath, stare blankly at nothing for a while, sleep. It was a pathetic routine but Gideon knew Harrow abided by routine and, anyway, who was she to argue. She had to take what she could get these days by way of stimulation. If barfing and fucking up Gideon’s beautiful sword ( _I’ll rescue you one day, my love_ : Gideon thought) was the only thing Harrow could manage to do, so be it. 

Gideon thought and thought and thought and sometimes she’d try to take over Harrow’s body because if Harrow wouldn’t do a few press-ups or, I don’t know, eat a cracker or two, then maybe Gideon could do it for her. But it was no use. There was a foot wide barrier of plex between them and no matter how much Gideon yelled, Harrow just kept staring blankly at God knows what. God probably did know, now that she thought about it. Boredom swelled over her, as much as it could swell over a consciousness locked in a body that wasn’t their own. She decided a trip down memory lane would be a worthy investment of her time. It’s not like she had anywhere to be. So Gideon kicked her feet up on the table of Harrow’s mind, not even bothering to clear off the cobwebs or journals, and let herself go. 

Canaan house seemed like a million years ago but each memory remained crystal clear, locked in place in frozen perfect recollection. Both a blessing and a curse. She scrolled through them, flipped through the pages like they were one of her magazines. This one was too long. That one was too boring. This one was too nasty. That one hurts more than she can fathom. 

There: that one was a good one. She sunk into it, going under. 

At first, it was just sensation. The salty, briny smell of the pool water still coming off of their drying clothes. Dark. Warm blankets. The taste of the makeup she hadn’t quite scrubbed out of the corners of her mouth. A little bit of panic, right under the surface, this feeling of _We might die here_ that seemed to permeate every cell in her body. 

They’d fallen asleep after talking quietly for a few hours, in a strange sort of verbal dance Gideon still wasn’t fully sure she understood but she’d finally admitted to herself that she’d almost kind of liked. Then Gideon had woken up suddenly, feeling strange in the weird little trundle at the foot of Harrow’s bed. She took a moment to assess. It was silent. The house creaked and groaned around them but everything was otherwise still. There was no one here, she reminded herself: not in the corners or closets or under the bed or hiding in that human sized recess in the bathroom. She’d checked, then checked again subtly as they’d gotten ready for bed.

Gideon shifted, feeling a strange sort of hollowness right around her sternum. It was probably from the pool. She was probably getting sick. She coughed quietly into her fist but her throat didn’t ache and she actually felt fine, like the perfect specimen of a human God had seen fit to create her as. Harrow was asleep just above her, on that way-too-big-for-one-person bed, her hands probably clenched around her prayer beads or crossed over her chest like a vampire or something. 

Gideon wanted to reach up and touch Harrow’s foot. Her fingers flexed and she pushed her palms against the blanket. They felt itchy, like she needed to _just do it_ and that thought made her absolutely bonkers with irritation. She knew Harrow would kick her, probably in the face, but she just wanted to touch Harrow more than she’d wanted to touch anyone in her life. Not because she had a weird foot thing - the _horror_ \- but because she just wanted be connected to Harrow in some way, fingers to skin, feel her pathetic little heart beating through her weak little veins and pulse points, let her leech some of the warmth from Gideon, who always ran just a touch warmer than most anyone else. Gideon lifted her head and strained her ears to hear if she was still breathing, the freaky little corpse. Maybe the water had gone to her head. 

“I can hear you moving around, Griddle,” Harrow said, her voice a rasp. 

Gideon laid back down and folded her arms across her chest, tucking her hands into her armpits, willing that horrible itch in her hands to go away. “Good. You’re still alive.” 

Harrow snorted, a strange sound. (“You sound like Crux,” Gideon remarked.) “As if your feeble attempts at drowning me would have even worked,” Harrow replied, pointedly ignoring Gideon’s comment. “I am unkillable. At least by the likes of you.” 

Now it was Gideon’s turn to snort: “The unkillable Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter.”

She heard a rustle as Harrow shifted and tried to picture her in her mind’s eye. Was she a side sleeper? Back sleeper? Did she roll up into a stupid tiny ball of bones? Gideon thought it was probably the latter. Then Harrow’s face popped up above the foot of the bed and Gideon started. Her eyes were two black holes in the already nearly-black room and Gideon fought the urge to grimace because Harrow hadn’t washed her face and her already ravaged makeup was smeared haphazardly across it in grey and white streaks that made her seem less human than usual. She pointed at Gideon, an irritatingly skinny finger that was a little too close for comfort. Gideon pulled back into her mattress. 

“You jape but I know that you, of all people, would be the least equipped to best me. You know that as well, even if you refuse to admit it.” 

Harrow’s head disappeared and Gideon scowled. She decided to make a bad decision because the moments after you’re insulted and feeling the tiniest bit wounded are really the best time to make decisions of any and all kinds. She lifted herself from the stupid baby trundle, the blankets falling from her body. Then she reached over the mattress and touched Harrow’s boney foot. Harrow jerked, pulling her leg up a bit, then stopped and held very still. There was a quiet sort of desperation between Harrow and Gideon that settled into the air, like two weak magnets sitting on opposite ends of a table. Gideon wondered how much Harrow would hate her if she hugged her again, just pulled herself up Harrow’s body and wrapped her arms around her and tucked the top of her head underneath her chin. Probably a lot. But it sounded a whole hell of a lot better than staying in her dumb infant bed right now, with death and destruction right around the corner. She’d take her chances.

In a breath, Gideon had climbed onto the bed and made her way to where Harrow’s tiny bird body lay on top of the blankets. Harrow nearly shrieked, pulling away. “What in the hell are you doing, Nav?”

Gideon just smiled into the dark and wrapped her arms around Harrow’s thin shoulders. Harrow thrashed about for a few moments, as she was wont to do when faced with affection of any sort, but then Gideon gently brushed a couple of hairs back from her temples and Harrow’s fight faded and she became pliant and soft against Gideon. Harrow’s cheek rested against Gideon’s chest; she could feel Harrow working her jaw and it kept brushing against her tit and for a moment had to just swallow a big lungful of air and remind herself that Harrow was Harrow and she was Gideon and never the twain should meet. Harrow let out a soft breath, the edge of a sigh, sounding more tired than ever before. The desperation Gideon had felt earlier came back, full force, and she found she didn’t want to fight it anymore. She had questions. She knew there would not be satisfactory answers to them but she had to ask them or maybe she’d just explode and even though Harrow probably - definitely - wouldn’t like her prying, she figured that at least the words would be out there and then she could try and forget she had them. 

“Harrowhark,” Gideon said. Her voice sounded loud in the damp silence. She wasn’t sure why but she needed to use Harrow’s full name then. It felt important. “Do you think we’ll die here?” 

It was an honest question, one with a lot of heart behind it and not the least bit sarcastic but Gideon worried that Harrow wouldn’t realize that and for the first time in her 18 years she was afraid that the canyon’s worth of pent up hatred and misunderstanding between them would be her undoing. And she also found that she hoped, very much, that the answer to her question would be a big fat _NO_. Harrow took a long time to respond. Her breathing was so shallow and quiet that Gideon thought maybe she’d fallen asleep again, wrapped in Gideon’s arms. When she did speak, her voice was just a steady whisper that dove deep into Gideon’s body, all the way down to her marrow: “I cannot pretend to know the answer to that question, Griddle. But I would like to say no; we will not die here.”

Gideon didn’t answer, just nodded. There was something in Harrow’s answer that made Gideon feel very very small somehow and she just couldn’t find it in herself to figure out why. As she nodded, her chin bounced just a bit against Harrow’s head. Harrow reached up and put her hand on top of her head to protect it, palm up, touching Gideon’s chin to still her movements, her cool fingers brushing against her throat. It was Gideon’s turn to play statue. She sat very still, as one would with a frightened creature, barely breathing, barely moving. It couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of seconds and then Harrow’s fingertips dragged lightly, like a breath, across Gideon’s neck and she pulled her arm back down and tucked it against herself. 

Harrow hadn’t given her a real answer, at least not the one she’d been looking for. But Gideon would accept knowing full well that if she pressed too hard, Harrow would most likely bring out one of her bigger constructs and rip Gideon from the bed by her hair and she liked her hair and she liked holding Harrow against her chest and wanted to stay here until the sun rose and maybe a little bit longer, if she could. So she stayed quiet, thinking about the Ninth and monsters in the basement and her failures and listened to Harrow’s weird breathing until she couldn't force her eyes to stay open any longer.

**Author's Note:**

> come scream about the locked tomb with me on [tumblr](https://goldfyshie927.tumblr.com)


End file.
